I’m Dale Storms. I was lucky enough to be the Chenango County historian from 1997 until 2007, and I’ve lived here now 50 years. We moved here in 1966, back in the dark ages. And when we got here, like a week after we got here, I had this awful toothache. It was one of my front teeth, and I thought, “Oh my God.”
And so I started with the phone book to call dentists, and got through every dentist in Norwich. No one would even talk to me, take new patients, they just didn’t care, until I got to the U’s, and that was Dr. Ulrich. And because we were new here, and I didn’t know, “Don’t call Dr. Ulrich,” I called Dr. Ulrich. And he said, “Oh, come on down. I’m free right now.”
His office was on the third floor in the building on the corner of East Main and South Broad, Howie Sullivan’s – used to be his building. That building. I made my way through the interior of this horrible old building you wouldn’t believe. Oh my goodness. I got up there, and I thought, “Where the heck am I?” I find this dentist’s office. There’s no secretary. But there he is, about 110 years old. I looked at him, and I thought, “Oh, this does not look good.”
And so he said, “Oh, come on in.” His dentist equipment was from the dark ages. I sat down, and he got his syringe out for Novocaine, and he sterilized his needle, I am not kidding, in a flame. I thought, “Oh my God. I am going to die.” And so he used his horrible old drill and drilled that tooth out and filled it. He figured out what was wrong.
Now, I am going to be, unfortunately, 83 next month. That filling is still in my tooth. I’ve got to give Dr. Ulrich credit. I mean, the man could fill a tooth, apparently. And I don’t think he lasted much more than another month or so as a dentist or even as a person, because he was really old. But he did a good job, and I can’t complain. So that’s my dentist in Norwich experience.
